Another Look at Repentance

Repentance is a cornerstone of Christian life, yet when it is misunderstood – as it often is – it can cause Christians to live with needless fear and doubt about their relationship with God.

The most common way to misunderstand repentance is to think that to repent is to stop sinning…

Repentance is not a behavior issue. It’s a faith, or trust, issue. Jesus has already done everything that needed to be done to restore humanity to a right relationship with God. There’s nothing we can add to that or take away from it. Repentance isn’t about promising to never sin again. It isn’t about striving to be a better person. Repentance is about believing God’s word of truth about who he is and who we are.

The world repentance, while it includes belief, does not mean “believe”. The word believe means believe.

The Greek word normally translated as repentance (“met-an’-oy-ah”) is defined to mean:

1) change one’s mind… 2) feel remorse, repent, be converted (Danker FW. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Christian Literature, 3rd ed. University of Chicago, 1979)

Repentance means to change. And in a biblical perspective this means to change from a way of sinning to a way of striving to live God’s way of life. Notice that repentance DOES involve action:

8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance (Matthew 3:8).

47…repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations (Luke 24:47).

20…they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance (Acts 26:20).

God does not (and cannot) sin (1 John 3:9). Christians should strive to be perfect as Jesus taught His followers to be (Matthew 5:48).

To teach repentance means that Christians do not need to do anything clearly contradicts scripture. Those who believe the Bible will not be transformed from the truth and listen to what J.Tkach is teaching as it clearly is in conflict with scripture.

Although J. Tkach no longer teaches that Christians are to repent and keep the ten commandments, Jesus, Paul, and others had a different view.